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Comment
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/4/01 6:11:00 pm)
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MFAs
CoryEllen, (or do you prefer C-E?),
Is there a fiction writer on your faculty who might go to bat for you with the director? If you feel someone might be sympathetic to your case--and would want you very much in his/her workshop--I'd enlist their help pronto, and schedule a meeting with your director.
If not, I have more ideas, but this first. Often the professor will have lots of say in these matters. Really. (Of course it all depends on ye olde department politics, but if there's someone you think you might pull into your cause, go ahead and give it a try, first?). Not that you asked my advice!
Kate
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/4/01 8:55:07 pm)
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Aah,
I see, it is Cory-Ellen, correct? I apologize for earlier spellings.
Kerrie: thanks for posting a review of Ketzia! I've sent you a check for your book by the way. Sorry it's late--please take your time sending it to me. I deserve a six month wait!
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(12/6/01 10:20:58 am)
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mfa
there's one professor whose workshop description says that they'll be looking at some fairy tales, so when I spoke to the director I pointed that out and she agreed that that might work for me. But, she said, she'd have to see how registration went and if there was any room in that workshop. I've been waitlisted, basically. I hate being waitlisted. It happened to me for undergraduate and graduate schools, and now for a class! Sigh.
I swear I want this book to be successful just to annoy them all :-)
C-E
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Kerrie
Registered User
(12/6/01 11:36:07 am)
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Access to classes...
I agree that you should enlist the professor of the specific class to help. My Freshman year, I attended an open mic lit reading, with a packet of writing in hand. I decided not to read, but the head of the English department sat in my row and started asking me questions- until I figured out he was the author of a selection all Freshmen had read at the start of the year. (Michael Downing, A Narrow Time) I let him borrow my writing to read, and he ended up telling the registrar to admit me to his Creative Writing class, even if it was already filled! I was the only Freshman in his class- a great treat! Even did an Independent Study with im Senoir year. So talk to anyone and everyone you can and get them on your side! Good luck!
Forest frosts,
Kerrie
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/7/01 12:16:25 pm)
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Yes,
like Kerrie, and as per my earlier posting, I strongly encourage you to go directly to the professor whose workshop you want to take, and speak to him/her in person. Bring your work--including the novel, perhaps--and explain your situation.
Have you done this, talked to the professor? I really, really, really encourage you to . . . perhaps he or she will let you audit, which of course, isn't what you want, but if the director doesn't come through in your favor, it is better than sitting it out. You'd at least then be getting to participate in the fiction dialogue you want . . .
Don't be shy about talking to the professor. It's just some person like you, or me!
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(12/7/01 12:30:30 pm)
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mfa
I thought about talking to the professor, but if I don't get into the class via the program, I'll be in a different one at the same time slot and therefore unable to audit. I asked the director of the program if talking to the professor would help, and she said if I was planning to workshop the book I should speak to her, but if I'd be doing other work then don't bother. In other words, "if you're going to hand her children's literature, warn her so she has the chance to tell you (and us) No - if you'll do Real writing, then it doesn't affect your chances either way." I'm leery enough of the prevailing attitude that I think I'll wait and ambush once I'm in.
Intimidated by professors I'm not. My parents are both professors, and I've seen how they look in the morning :-)
C-E
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Kate
Unregistered User
(12/7/01 4:23:25 pm)
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mfa
Cory-Ellen,
I've never heard of advice such as the director gave you, really. I'd be leery too, of words like that. Sounds like you know what you're doing. (By the way, is it a very big department, where you are?)
I always wished I'd grown up with professors for parents! (I do love my parents just as they are, but I had this very cliche idea of what it'd be like to have professors for parents . . .). Lucky you!
Good luck getting in to the workshop. I wonder if you don't get in, if you know some people in your area who have published already, too, who would make a good, solid writers' group? Self-selecting groups can be so great, compared to workshops, sometimes.
Kate
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